Muscle Memory
by LadySilver
Summary: After Danny and Isaac are assigned to share a room at summer lacrosse camp, they learn a few things about themselves and each other. Danny/Isaac. AU from season 2.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Written for musikurt for the event of shipswap. Thanks to htbthomas for the beta. Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome._

**Muscle Memory**

by LadySilver

I.

Danny dropped his head back on his pillow with a loud groan and summed up the first day of summer lacrosse camp with a succinct, "I have never hurt so much in my life." It wasn't true; he reached the same conclusion the first day of every training season, whether it was lacrosse or marching band, yet the first day was _always_ worse than he anticipated it would be. While he knew his body would adjust to the onslaught of physical exercise in a couple days, that only made it easier to get through the first few in theory.

He let his head loll to the side, gravity doing its work in the absence of cooperative muscles, and took in his roommate. Isaac was sitting cross-legged on the other bed, the stark white sheets barely creased beneath him, his fingers skimming across the surface of his iPod as he played a game. He was still flushed from the afternoon's scrimmage and his blond curls had dried plastered to his head, yet he held his body loose, his limbs moving easily as he ducked and swayed in futile efforts to influence the video game by example. From the iPod came the faint thrumming of the volume turned almost all the way to mute.

"Why do I do this to myself?" Danny asked. His legs hurt. His arms hurt. Hell, even his fingernails and earlobes hurt. The old saw about 'muscles he didn't know he had' sprung into his mind, except he was well aware of every muscle group in his body and he knew how much they all hated him right now.

Isaac effortlessly ran a hand through his hair and dropped it back to the screen. Danny had never envied him more in his life. With his attention on the game, Isaac had yet to acknowledge any of Danny's complaining.

Jackson would have listened...well, okay, Jackson would have pretended to listen. Then he would have reminded Danny that "no pain, no gain" and "crying is for wimps and losers." And after Danny pretended to accept a couple of clichés as valid advice, they would have gotten down to a serious verbal dissection of every muscle, tendon, and bone in their bodies and whether it was the jumping jacks, crunches, or bench presses that had ruined them.

Only Jackson was gone—up and moved to England without even an apology for the whole death scare—and Danny was stuck with Isaac who, while a stunning physical example of humanity, did not seem to be aware of the rules for how to deal with extreme pain. Gorgeous to look at, but not much of a team player, Danny thought.

Setting down the iPod, Isaac stretched his arms up in the air and arched backward until his vertebrae popped. Then he hopped off the bed and paced over to the little refrigerator that came with the dorm room they were borrowing. Without any apparent difficulty, he squatted in front of it, extracted a bottle of water, and stood back up. The white t-shirt he wore strained over his torso with each movement.

"How can you move?" Danny questioned in amazement. "How come you're not writhing in agony like the rest of us?"

For an answer, Isaac only lifted the water to his lips and downed half of it.

Danny watched his teammate's throat work as he swallowed the liquid, saw the flex of Isaac's bicep as he clenched the bottle, saw Isaac's heavy eyelids fall to a satisfied half-mast, and slowly felt his mind churning toward one obvious conclusion: "You're not human." The awed words sprang from his mouth and Danny instantly felt himself redden with embarrassment. He tried to turn away or cough or do anything to distract the god he now recognized was standing before him from that moment of mind-mouth failure, but couldn't get any part of his body to obey.

Isaac lowered the bottle and raised his blue eyes, for the first time focusing on Danny.

Danny cringed inwardly and prayed that Isaac wasn't the type to be offended; he did not need that between them. Never had Danny needed a lesson in how ill-advised it was to hit on teammates, nor had he ever needed one when Jackson served as his roommate and buffer. He'd also never realized how perfect Isaac was until they'd ended up assigned to the same room for camp and Danny had seen Isaac's face slack and unguarded in sleep. The crush hit him harder than Eddie Abamowitz hit during Finals, and Danny had gone to bed in despair of yet another hot guy that he had no chance with and the sinking feeling that he was about to throw away any goodwill he'd built with the rest of the guys.

When Isaac responded, Danny was struggling to pull himself upright so that he could at least have any embarrassing conversations in a non-supine position—he succeeded only in scooting his head into the cinder-block wall—so he wasn't really paying attention. He was more interested in getting the apology out there quickly before any permanent damage could set in. "I shouldn't've said that," he began. "I'm sorry, that was-"

His eyes narrowed as he noticed the smirk that had spread across Isaac's lips and how his stance had shifted to become somehow lighter and easier.

"What?" Danny asked, for a moment wondering if Isaac could see how quickly Danny's imagination had gone to fitting him into the Greek pantheon.

Then he belatedly heard Isaac's response: "Took ya long enough to figure it out."

"Well, I mean, you're still mobile. You're not hurting. You never get upset with Coach," Danny hedged. "I always knew there was something inhuman about you." He meant it as a compliment, not as a literal statement, and he assumed Isaac understood that. Danny knew full well how it felt to be viewed as less than those around him, and it was only because Isaac seemed to be playing into joke that he let it go on.

With a shake of his head, the challenge slid off Isaac's face and he went back to looking like a normal, if amazingly beautiful, guy."Never mind," he said. Somehow, Danny sensed, he had crossed a line. Still holding the water, Isaac crossed back to his bed and resumed his cross-legged position on it, once again taking up arms against the enemies his iPod provided, once again tuning Danny out.

II.

A loud rumble of thunder jolted Danny from his sleep. A few seconds later, more lightning flashed through the sky like a cosmic light switch was being toggled. Danny rolled from the dorm bed and padded across the cold vinyl floor toward the window. Any storm behaving like this one was worth checking out. The air was thick with ozone and felt tingly against his exposed skin, bringing a smile to his face. He'd always liked storms, as long as he could view piling thunder clouds and torrential rain from the safety and dryness of the indoors.

He was stopped with a louder moan coming from Isaac's bed. In the shadow-formed room, he could barely make out the dark lumps of his roommate writhing in his sleep. One foot kicked out, freeing itself from the confines of the sheet and Issac let out a hiss, like he'd been burned.

Danny inched closer, unsure how to awaken someone from a nightmare, much less whether he should. Like everyone else at school, he knew Isaac's history—he'd been on the field the day the police had interrupted practice to inform Isaac of his father's death—and yet had been blown away that anything so awful could really be happening to one of BHHS's own. He couldn't imagine what horror Isaac might be reliving now.

The lightning began flashing again, this round like a string of ever bigger firecrackers exploding in the sky. The staccato flares lit up the room. For a long moment, the light exposed Isaac's face without any mercy or forgiveness. Then the room dropped back into a darkness that was even heavier now to Danny's light-blinded eyes, and all Danny could see was the image seared into his brain of Isaac's features thickened and misshapen, sideburns running the length of his face where there'd been only smooth skin before, and sharp, pointed canines in a mouth clenched in a silent yell.

He stumbled backward, one hand coming up in a preemptive defense. The edge of the desk smacked his lower back and he jolted to a stop with an "Ow!"

In an instant, Isaac sprung into a crouch. His fingers dug into the side of the soft mattress as he positioned himself to attack. The lacrosse Cyclones shirt he wore was bunched up high on his chest, exposing the pale skin of his abdomen. His eyes opened.

They burned with a golden glow.

_The hell?_ Danny thought, a sharp indrawn breath punctuating the half-formed thought. Outside, the first wave of rain slammed against the roof and ground with an echo that shook the building. As it continued to fall, its noise subsumed all others and insisted on covering even the sound of Danny's heartbeat pounding in his ears.

Isaac stayed poised, his teeth barred and threatening even in the darkness. More so in the darkness.

"It's just me," Danny tried to say. His voice stuck. He started to look away, then stopped himself. Somewhere he'd read that looking away was a sign of weakness. Or, maybe, it was a sign of submission. Either one wasn't acceptable. While he had no idea what those amber eyes and elongated teeth meant for what he was dealing with, his instincts told him that who was still the same brash guy who'd taken too enthusiastically to the tackling practice that afternoon and the coach's repeated injunctions to "Hit 'em harder. HARDER!"

Which meant that, either way, Danny was in danger.

"Isaac, wake up. It's just me. Danny. I'm not going to hurt you." The edge of the desk pressed painfully into his back and was doubtless going to leave a mark. Regardless of his resolve, sweat bloomed at his armpits and soaked immediately into his own t-shirt. "Come on, man."

His entreaties were immediately drowned in the rain's cacophony. The noise created a cushion around the dorm room that made everything in it seem more still, quieter, unreal.

And in that moment, Danny realized that fear wasn't the only emotion he was feeling. Warmth tightened his chest and his groin. The longer Isaac's inhuman eyes bore into him, the more turned on he became. His hips gave an involuntary thrust forward and he bit hit lip to hold back a moan that did not belong to this moment, no matter how private it felt. While he knew he had a thing for bad boys, this was ridiculous.

"Isaac," he repeated, daring to move a step closer. Instinctively, he stuck his hand out like he was approaching a frightened dog. He worked to keep his breathing even and his voice calm despite the hormones warring in him that told him he was moving too slowly and the wrong direction.

Isaac's shoulders drew in as he prepared to launch himself. Another flash of lightning illuminated the room. Its matching boom of thunder came before the light had finished fading. It pounded through the room so loudly that it hit Danny like a physical blow. He stumbled forward and Isaac rocked backward.

The shock of the noise must have jolted Isaac awake because he started shaking his head like a person struggling to reorient himself. The yellow faded from his eyes, the extra hair faded from his face, and he sat down heavily on the bed. "What's going on?"

Moving carefully in the darkness, Danny approached his teammate. His foot brushed against something on the floor which he hoped was a discarded sock, but he didn't bow down to pick it up; he still didn't trust the situation enough to break eye contact. "You were having a nightmare," he began. Then, figuring that he might as well get Isaac fully up to speed, he added, "So, uh, you weren't kidding about not being human."

Brushing a hand through his sleep-tousled curls, Isaac replied, "I get them sometimes. If I'd known there was gonna be a thunderstorm tonight, I would've warned you. Sorry."

Danny felt his eyebrows go up at how deftly Isaac stepped over the second comment. He hadn't even bothered with an "I told you so," much less a "You thought I was serious?" In fact, it seemed like he hadn't heard the comment at all—which given the rain's continued clatter was possible, though unlikely. Gingerly, Danny sat down on the edge of the bed; he wanted to lend his support, yet his body was still sending conflicting messages about what he should do once he got this close. He kept a careful valley of white sheet between himself and Isaac. Just in case. "Do you want to talk about it?" Even he wasn't sure which "it" he meant.

Isaac considered a moment, his head tipped to one side, then concluded, "Nah, I'm good."

"OK," Danny replied, but he couldn't bring himself to move. His eyes had finally adjusted to the dark, and this close he could see Isaac's face clearly. Not surprisingly, that wasn't helping his situation at all. He so much wanted to see Isaac's eyes change colors again. The yellow had burned into his memory and he knew that when he finally got back to sleep tonight, those eyes would be the subject of his dreams. "The storm doesn't sound like it's going to let up anytime soon," he commented. "If you want, I can keep you company." He cringed at how much like a pick-up line his offer sounded, despite it being meant as totally genuine.

Isaac's nostrils flared and the corners of his mouth crinkled like he was trying to suppress a grin. "Werewolf," he said.

"What?"

"That's one of the things you want to know, right? What I am?"

The word Isaac used sunk in and suddenly a whole lot of overheard conversations flooded into his memory. The problem was, Isaac hadn't been a part of any of them—which begged the question as to just how many other people he knew were also werewolves, with at least one former-best-friend as an obvious candidate. "This, I want to hear about." To show that he wasn't going anywhere, he stretched out on the bed. The sheets still radiated warmth from where Isaac had been laying and the pillow smelled pleasantly of his shampoo. "I get the idea that everyone at our school knows about werewolves except for me."

Though Isaac let out a brief chuckle, Danny could hear the tension wound through it. His nervous glances at the ever-flickering window were impossible to miss. "Not everyone," Isaac replied. He also lay down, though he kept his arms pressed close to his sides, the swath of neutral white between them laid open-a pretty amazing feat for two fully grown men on a bed that was normally too small for one.

Danny's heart dropped; he forced himself to look straight at the ceiling so that Isaac couldn't read the disappointment in his expression.

"A lot of people do, though," Isaac continued. "Honestly, I thought you'd figured it out a long time ago, what with Jackson-"

"Jackson," Danny murmured. He _knew_ it.

A pause while another peal of thunder filled the room, then: "He didn't tell you?"

"I guess he didn't trust me enough." Danny blinked against the burning in his eyes and swallowed down the urge to trash talk his friend. Part of being Jackson's friend was accepting that Jackson came first in the relationship, a point which Danny had made peace with a long time ago. What he wasn't dealing with so well was the tumult of emotions tonight and how they were reopening wounds he didn't know he'd had.

The bed shifted, the sturdy dorm room bed frame squeaking against the floor as the weight on it redistributed. And then Isaac's shoulder pressed against Danny's, his body heat seeping through the thin layers of t-shirt between them.

"I'll tell you anything you want to know," Isaac said.

Danny had to let his next breath out slowly at what Isaac's touch was doing to him, at how it soothed him. "Anything?"

"Sure."

He listened to the rain pound—still no sign of ceasing—and tried to count the number of flashes in a convenient explosion of lightning without any success, and when Nature didn't bring the end of the world, he decided he couldn't either. "Kiss me?"

Isaac stiffened, and Danny started to pull away, believing that he'd misread everything. A hand on his chest stayed him. In the strength of the splayed fingers was all the reassurance Danny needed. "Just so you know—" Isaac lifted himself so that he was leaning over Danny, their faces only inches apart. His skin was pale, chin peppered with late-night beard growth, and his breath smelled faintly sour in a way that Danny desperately wanted to taste. "—Making out might make me shift."

Danny's stomach turned over and this time he couldn't restrain his hips' thrust. "Is there any way I can guarantee that?" Lacing his fingers through Isaac's hair, he pulled the werewolf's head close enough for their lips to brush.

Isaac's eyes flared yellow and he swung a leg over Danny's so that the two boys were now entwined. "Only if you promise to help me forget about the storm. I _really_ don't like storms."

Though Danny hadn't kissed anyone in months, with incentive like that he was certain that his mouth would remember what to do. The storm continued, but Danny grew oblivious to it as he began anticipating all the ways his muscles were going to ache in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: As I've well learned, explicit material is way outside of my comfort zone, so this story is, and is going to stay, T rated. That said...I hope you enjoy the surprise chapter (well, it surprised me; I wasn't planning on writing more). Comments and constructive critique are _**always**_ welcome and are highly motivating. If anyone else would like to take the scenario where I cannot, you're also welcome to do that._

* * *

By the time morning came, the storm had given way to a pale, watery light that promised a hot, muggy day, and Danny had half-convinced himself that he had had the world's strangest dream. He awoke in his own bed, fully clothed, and chiding himself for how easily dream logic had inserted _werewolves _into an otherwise ordinary, if unexpected, sex dream.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he rolled out of bed and stumbled down the hall toward the dorm's bathroom. His bladder hurt with the need to pee, his thighs and biceps hurt from the previous day's weight lifting, and the skin across his shoulder blades felt raw and itchy. The last brought him a moment's pause because he couldn't think of what he'd done to make his back _itch _like a skinned knee healing_._

In the bathroom, he tugged off his t-shirt and craned his neck to inspect his back in one of the mirrors hung over the row of sinks. Though the position was awkward, there was no missing the rows of parallel scratches that lined his back.

Danny blinked hard and looked again; he had definitely _not _been dreaming the previous night.

His back was scored with long cuts, one set starting from the inside edge of his shoulder blades and dragging nearly to his armpits. Dried blood smeared from another set of gouges that looked particularly deep, and he let out a hiss between his teeth as he tried to curl his arm around to prod at the wounds. He hissed again when his fingers found them, the scabs rough beneath his touch and sensitive. The stretch of his skin as he worked his arms told him that he was going to have to be careful how he moved so that the wounds wouldn't reopen. Bloodstained shirts were not a thing he wanted to explain.

Speaking of which: A glance at the shirt wadded in his hand showed incriminating streaks of dried brown marring the back. The shirt was ruined. He thought briefly about throwing it away, then decided that the cover it provided was better than one of the other guys seeing what his skin looked like. It wouldn't take much for someone to figure out that Isaac was the cause; and, while Danny was out, he didn't know if Isaac was. More importantly, Isaac also had his supernatural secret to protect, and Danny didn't want to be responsible for that getting revealed.

He prodded at the wounds one more time before ducking into the shower to clean them as best as he could. The water stung as it hit his back. He winced in an unconscious effort to get away from the pain, a soft yelp escaping his mouth. To distract himself, he called on the memory of how he got the wounds: of Isaac's hands grabbing him in desire, of Isaac's body sprawled under his, of the hitches in Isaac's breathing as he got closer and closer to release from Danny's touches. Between the hot water and the hotter recollection, Danny soon found himself hard. With Isaac's name on his lips, he stroked himself off.

Isaac was standing at the window when Danny returned to the room, brown hair still wet from the shower and sleep clothes damp from being put back on without his body drying first. He hadn't thought to bring his towel with him.

Isaac's sleep shorts hung low on his hips, his white t-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders. The sun streaming in through the rain speckled window caught the highlights in his hair and shone down the length of his body like a spotlight. In their temporary dorm room—furnished only with two metal frame beds and a pair of scratched wooden desks, and decorated with nothing except the strewn detritus of two highschool guys living out of their duffle bags and Danny's laptop—Isaac stood as a solid reminder of how good things could come when one least expected it.

Danny couldn't believe how beautiful he was. He started toward him, his feet leaving the outlines of wet footprints on the vinyl floor. Isaac turned, a cautious smile on his face, then stopped and the smile dropped away. His nostrils flared. "You're hurt," he said.

With a wet squelch, Danny came to a stop, his brow creased in confusion. He automatically glanced down at his arms and legs, searching for sign of an injury that Issac could see, and found nothing except an already-fading bruise on his left calf. "What do you mean?"

Isaac drew closer, walking in a wide arc around Danny. He quickly spotted the blood-stains on the t-shirt. His voice was strained as he asked, "What happened?"

Danny waggled his eyebrows to show exactly what he meant when he replied, "Just a few battle scars from last night. It's nothing serious."

His answer didn't have the effect he intended. If anything, Isaac grew more worried. "Did I do that? Did I hurt you?"

"No!" Danny grabbed Issac's hands in his. They were warm with long fingers and blunt, chewed fingernails. "I mean, technically, yes. You scratched me." Callouses roughened his palms and scars crisscrossed Isaac's knuckles. The callouses came from wielding a lacrosse stick, but the scars looked like nothing Danny had seen before. "But you didn't hurt me."

"Show me."

Danny hesitated for a second, then let go of one of Isaac's hands long enough to twist around and pull down the neckline of his shirt so that Isaac could get a glimpse, and only a glimpse, of the wounds. The ruse didn't work. Isaac spun him around and yanked the shirt up, exposing Danny's back fully.

"I clawed you. God." Isaac was backing away before Danny could finish the task of getting the shirt over his head. Alone in the room with nothing more to hide, he saw no reason to keep wearing it. The wet fabric had been uncomfortable brushing against the raw skin and the slight breeze the room's vents blew out felt soothing after such heaviness. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I knew that losing control was bad."

"It's OK," Danny assured him. "Isaac, it's OK."

"How can it be OK?" Isaac was keeping a careful distance from Danny again, his back pressed to the windowsill. His face had gone pale with fear and he held his shoulders hunched in like he expected to need to defend himself. "I hurt you."

"Because I enjoyed getting them," Danny answered simply, trying to keep his normal sarcasm out of his tone. He knew about Isaac's past—everyone at school had learned of it after his father had been murdered—but he'd never seen such a stunning example of how that past could haunt someone forever. "I asked you to...what's the word you used? Shift. I told you it was OK. That's what happened, right? It's not just an eyes-and-teeth thing?"

Isaac was shaking his head before Danny finished. "No, no. I could've hurt you real bad. I could've-" He closed his eyes and let out a forced exhalation. "I'll talk to Scott. He knows how to stay in control when he's worked up. I won't let it happen again. I promise." His head jerked up suddenly, blue eyes bright with worry. "Can we try again?"

While there were lots of correct and incorrect ways to deal with people who were so loaded with psychological landmines, Danny's training had come from the School of Jackson Whittemore. Jackson tried to warp reality around people through cutting remarks and mind games to keep them always off-balance so that he could manipulate them better; Danny had learned that the best way to deal was to not get dragged in. Though he sensed that Isaac wasn't trying to do the same thing, the effect pinged all of Danny's drama detectors. If he and Isaac were going to work out, Danny would have to learn how to cope with his issues. Until then, he could only draw on the skills he already had:

"Show me how you did it," he ordered, hoping to distract Isaac with a command that he'd instinctively follow rather than get mired in a pointless and circular argument. "Right now. I want to see what you look like in the daylight."

"I can't," Isaac protested.

For a second, Danny wondered if that was true. Maybe werewolves could only transform at night or only...when they were horny? The previous night hadn't been a full moon, so he knew that wasn't all that mattered—if it mattered at all. Then he flashed back on that night in The Jungle when he'd been attacked; he hadn't seen much in the strobing lights and fake fog of the club, but in hindsight, he'd definitely seen werewolf eyes. "Show me."

Isaac started to shake his head again, but then his defensive arm dropped. "You're sure?"

What Danny wanted to say was "If you're going to date someone, you should know what they look like, don't you think?" But the part of him that was good at reading people knew that he'd lose Isaac if he used that many words. So, he settled for a much more concise, "Yes."

Decision made, Isaac stepped forward and pressed his body flush to Danny's. They were nearly the same height, which put their hips in direct contact. The fit was so perfect that Danny couldn't believe that he'd gone this long without it. Lacing his fingers through Danny's hair, Isaac first touched his forehead to Danny's, then brought their mouths together for a crushing kiss. Danny had time to find Isaac's ass, to give the firm muscles there one good squeeze, before Isaac pushed him away.

The push sent Danny back two huge steps before he could stop the momentum. He started to protest the separation, but Isaac cut him off.

"Had to get my heart rate up," he sorta explained, and then his face started to change.

It happened all at once, though Danny noticed the eyes first—always the eyes—and then the shift of muscles in the jaw to allow for the row of pointed lower teeth and long canines that seemed to form from the existing ones. Isaac's brow grew heavier, subsuming his eyebrows, and wide sideburns raced down his face. His posture changed to a lower center of gravity and he looked broader, heavier, yet more lithe.

Danny's own throat went suddenly dry, his stomach dropped, his dick surged with an influx of blood. "I'm so screwed," he mumbled, voice hoarse. With the sunlight shining on him, without any shade or shadow to soften or hide the predatory features, Isaac in his werewolf form was the sexiest thing Danny had ever seen.

Then Isaac lifted his hands, fingers curled to display the sharp claws on the end of each finger. Danny swallowed once, and again. The effort did nothing to alleviate either his dry mouth or his realization that he'd been lucky only to get a few scratches rather than to be be flayed alive. "This is how," Isaac said. His speech was remarkably clear considering the new teeth he had to talk around, no more slurred than Danny's own speech sometimes got when he tried to speak too fast.

Taking in the sight of the person who had tripped sexual wires Danny didn't know he had with a transformation that should be impossible, Danny thought over all the werewolf movies he'd seen and what the creatures in them had looked like. The results didn't match up at all to the reality. He was unsure what he wanted the answer to be when he asked, "Is this...all? I thought werewolves were supposed to turn into actual wolves or eight foot tall monsters or something...furrier."

With all those teeth, Isaac's grin was not friendly, even if he meant it to be. "There's more. I can't do it yet. I don't have the power yet."

Danny felt his knees weaken and he had to slap a hand on the desk to keep his balance. "Oh." A breath later, he added, "Totally screwed."

As quickly as they'd come on, the changes to Isaac's face and body melted away. When he was back to his totally human self, he settled against the desk and dropped into his usual slouch. A kind of weariness that belied the fresh start to the day settled over his features. His heavy-lidded eyes drooped under the weight of his worry. "That's the last time," he stated. "I have to learn how to control it so I don't shift with you around anymore. I can't risk hurting you worse."

"It's just a few scratches," Danny protested.. The idea of being deprived of the werewolf features horrified him at a visceral level at the same time as his logical side reminded him the wickedness of those claws.

"Shifting isn't just 'eyes-and-teeth,'" Isaac replied, echoing Danny's earlier phrasing. "It changes how I think and what I...want." He raised his gaze to meet Danny's. There was a flicker of something dangerous in its depths. "Boyd says that the bite turned me into an asshole. He's wrong, though. The bite just made it so I didn't have to be afraid."

The list of people-who-were-also-werewolves was getting a lot longer than Danny thought was possible. He filed the new name away for future reference and paced across the small room while he processed what Isaac was telling him. It was rapidly becoming clear that mass media had done _nothing _to properly inform him about werewolves. On the other hand, he and Isaac had been classmates since the second grade and teammates for two years—which was kind of appalling considering much Danny had only learned about him in the last 24 hours—and glowing eyes or not, Isaac was still an absolutely beautiful guy who Danny very much wanted to get to know better. "You're in luck," he said. He parked himself on the edge of his bed to stop his nervous pacing. The bed frame squealed in protest of the increased weight that made Isaac wince and rub his ears. "I happen to have a long history of being attracted to assholes."

Isaac's mouth quirked into a brief smile. "Yeah. And I've always been attracted to bleeding hearts." As if realizing how that could be misunderstood, he added, "Um. Metaphorically." He opened his mouth like he was going to say more, then shut it again.

"Does that qualify me or disqualify me?" Danny asked. For once, he genuinely didn't know whether a personality label applied to him. By comparison to Jackson, he was definitely in. But Jackson was gone and it wouldn't be long before everyone figured out that Danny had quite the asshole streak, too. The microseconds that passed while he waited to find out Isaac's answer dragged. In them, he could feel the heat of the day winning over the sluggish efforts of the vent and the room growing ever more warm. He wiped a line of sweat from his forehead and leaned forward, anticipating.

Isaac raked his hands through his hair, kicked a foot against the desk, and sighed. "I think it means that we're both screwed." He kicked the desk again, his face working through a range of expressions. At last he said, "Just one thing. Why aren't you afraid of me?" He gestured to himself and curled a lip back to expose blunt human teeth. "Of what I am?"

Danny thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. The gesture stretched the skin on his back. The scratches twinged and started up the furious itching again, a reminder of the claws that had caused them. "I don't know." He rolled his shoulders again, this time on purpose to feel the tug and pull of the scabbing and healing skin. "I guess I find you too hot to be frightening. Werewolf kink. Who could've predicted that?"

The grin Isaac gave in response was equal parts shy and immensely self-satisfied. He cut his gaze away, fiddled with the power cord to the laptop for a second. "I heard you in the shower."

The question of "how" was formed on Danny's lips before he figured out the answer for himself. The wince at the squeaking bed frame, to an extent even the fear of the thunderstorm. He'd had a dog once—a golden retriever—who hid under the bed, quaking in terror, each time a storm rolled through. Danny had thought it was because the dog didn't understand, but his father had suggested it was because the thunder hurt the dog's ears. Later, after Danny started playing trumpet, he had to lock the dog in the basement when he practiced to save it, and himself, from the animal's anguished howling. "Oh?" he asked, instead.

Isaac licked his lips, nodded once. "I liked it."

Danny's gaze dipped to Isaac's crotch. The black shorts he was wearing now looked the same as the ones he'd gone to sleep in the previous night—the same as the ones Danny had happily removed from the previous night, as well—which didn't necessarily mean anything, but he couldn't stop himself from asking: "Did you do anything about it?"

Isaac shook his head in the negative. "Wanted to."

"So what stopped you?"

That answer became obvious, too, with the way Isaac clenched his teeth and balled his fists. He'd been afraid of shifting.

Danny pushed to his feet with a movement so fast that Isaac scuttled back along the desk. "This is stupid. I get that the whole werewolf thing is dangerous, but you don't need to worry so much about being dangerous around me." He stopped, frowned, the idea he was trying to express harder to parse out loud than it had been in his head. "You don't need to be afraid of hurting me." And that still wasn't it. He scratched his head and tried to work back through what he'd learned in the past few hours and the sense he was now able to make of what he'd witnessed in the last few months. "You don't need to be afraid of _enjoying _hurting me."

Isaac recoiled like he'd been punched in the gut.

"That it, isn't it?" Danny continued, his eyes widening at the truth of his own observation. He waved a hand behind his neck, gesturing toward the scratches. "You scratching me isn't the problem. The problem is how much you want to do it again."

A mask of fear had settled over Isaac's face, his body held tightly. If a raised heart rate was all that it took for a werewolf to shift, then Danny didn't see how Isaac still held his human form. In the hallway, the slamming of doors and pounding of footsteps indicated the other players arising for the day, which meant that it was almost time for breakfast. Being up and moving so much before everyone else was a fitting surprise given how unusual the day was starting out.

"In case I haven't made it clear," Danny stated, "I want you to do it again. What happened last night was incredible, and if I thought we could get away with it without Coach killing us, I'd suggest that we skip practice today and spend more time getting to know each other."

"You don't understand! My father—"

"How about we make a deal?" Danny interrupted. "I'll promise to let you know if I get to be afraid, and you promise to stop."

"What if I can't?"

Danny had to think about that, albeit quickly, because, while he had dated a lot of strange people with stranger expectations about what a relationship should be, he'd never dated a werewolf before. The only thing he knew for sure is that human rules probably weren't going to be a good fit. "I guess that's something we'll have to figure out as we go along." And then, because it seemed like Isaac was waiting for more, he added a clause that the flush of heat through his body belied him ever following through on. "And if it turns out that _I _decide that dating a werewolf is too dangerous, then you let me walk away."

They listened to Greenberg shouting something unintelligible as he raced down the hall, pounding on doors. Even expecting it, both the boys jumped when the trio of knocks reverberated through their room. The footsteps promptly moved on to the next room, so neither of them bothered to move to answer the door.

Isaac tipped his head to the side. "The field is flooded," he said, after listening for a minute. "Coach is trying to move practice into the fieldhouse, except the power's out there and the administration doesn't like the idea of us practicing in the dark. Coach is flipping out at the secretary right now."

Instinctively, Danny turned his head, trying to locate Coach's voice. Since he couldn't hear anything over the chaos in the hallway, he glanced out the window. A slim crescent of moon was all the marred the clear blue sky despite the continuous dripping of water from the eaves that made him think it was still raining. Branches and leaves littered the ground in between the buildings, and a nearby tree had been ripped up by the roots and now leaned precariously against its neighbor. While he watched, a crane truck arrived bearing the logo of a local tree removal service. It looked like the campus had bigger problems to deal with than acquiescing to the coach, no matter how much he screamed and threatened.

This could turn out to be the best kind of strange day, after all.

"Well?" Danny prompted when it seemed like Isaac had forgotten that he'd been asked a question.

"Sorry," Isaac said, a slight shake of his head returning him to the conversation in the room. "I've never heard such creative swearing before. Coach has been really holding back on us." Growing serious again, he bit his lip as he thought about what Danny had asked. One on hand, his claws started to form, then slipped back into being harmless fingernails. "OK," he agreed, at last.

"OK?"

Isaac hesitated, then nodded more definitively. "OK." He set an awkward hand on Danny's shoulder, like he wanted to touch but wasn't sure where he was allowed. "We should get dressed and go down to get some breakfast. I'm starving."

Danny captured the hand and used it to pull Isaac closer. "Not yet. There's something I want to try first." To emphasize his intentions, he cupped Isaac's balls. Through the thin cotton fabric of the sleep shorts, their heavy weight filled his palm.

"Not yet?" Isaac groaned. The question was hollow, waiting to be filled. His eyes flared yellow and Danny's breath knotted itself in his throat.

When he could speak again, he accused, "You did that on purpose."

Isaac's only response was a raising of his eyebrows. The implicit challenge took Danny back to to that first day of camp when he had called Isaac inhuman, a meaningless quip that had resulted in far greater repercussions than either of them could have imagined. It would be interesting to test just how inhuman he actually was.

He rucked Isaac's shirt up and over his head, further mussing his already sleep-wild curls, and began kissing his way back down his body. Isaac's body was warm and growing warmer under Danny's lips and tongue. The slight stickiness of dried sweat on his skin teased Danny's tongue with salt.

At Isaac's naval, he paused, inhaled. He smelled strongly of musk and less so of the residue of deodorant. The scent curled its way through Danny and captured him. In an instant, he couldn't imagine wanting to smell anyone else, couldn't wait to catalogue Isaac's scents from freshly showered to rank from practice.

He looked up, eager to see the expression that matched the noises that had replaced the dripping water.

Isaac's head was thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, mouth open. While Danny watched, his teeth sharpened and lengthened. The sight threatened Danny's balance; he had to still himself to reposition before he fell over. The cessation of attention drew a whimper of disappointment from Isaac, which Danny tried to make up for with a circling of his thumbs over Isaac's nipples. Isaac groaned again, mouth opening wider. In the sunlight, his fangs glinted, sharp and dangerous.

Those teeth—those teeth were going to be a problem.

As Danny resumed his journey south, following the trail of hair that roughened the texture of Isaac's skin, he decided that maybe Isaac had been right about one thing. He needed to learn not to shift when aroused. He needed to learn to stay human when his pulse rose and he couldn't think. Danny had so many things he wanted to try, so much to learn about this new body and how it would fit together with his, and they needed to know that it wouldn't be dangerous. But not all the time. Please, god, not all the time.


End file.
